ot only Nanty Glo, but Blacklick Valley's other towns—Vintondale, Twin Rocks, Cardiff—underwent rapid population growth and economic expansion in the last years of the 19th Century and the first quarter of the 20th. Vintondale introduced the Industrial Revolution to Cambria County with the county's first iron furnace, Eliza, erected on the bank of the Blacklick Creek in 1845, presaging the explosion of Johnstown as steel center at the county's southern border. The Eliza and its kind being not very productive, it was abandoned before the founding of Vintondale as a town, and it emerged as a coal and coke capitol a generation later, its fortunes guided by Warren Delano, a first cousin of American President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The “historical marker” above, an artist's imagining, attempts to capture the significance of these valleys and hills in the lives of a generation. 

Now, with the development of Cambria County's best cross-country trail (the Ghost Town Trail) along the Blacklick Creek from Nanty Glo to Vintondate and, thence to Dilltown to the south and Red Mill and White Mill to the north, Blacklick Valley has emerged as a major tourist draw for the county. Its appeal as a getaway and recreational center will continue developing through the 21st Century. This series of articles describes several of the attractions of the Trail.